From contingent to Primary: building a space marine army

[W0lfie]

Hey B&C,

 

So...I am a veteran tau player who has been using space marine allies since 6th ed began. Right now, I run a libby, a scout sniper squad and a stormtalon alongside my hunter cadre. I am looking to turn this into a larger SM force.

 

Where do I start? I picked up a tac squad and a razorback box today (haven't assembled them yet) and have ordered Sevrin Loth and Tyberos the Red Wake (because Tyberos makes for a lulzy allied contingent, and there's ALWAYS room for Sevrin Loth), as well as a land raider crusader/redeemer. I'm going to pick up some assault terminators soon, just waiting to see if I get them for xmas first.

 

Anyways...Any ideas for taking these building blocks, and making them into a viable army? I can definitely introduce as many tau allies as I need to, if that proves necessary.

[Giga]

Tac squad box is a great buy. Razorback you should assemble but not glue the turret, so you can double as a rhino and a razorback, depending on list.

 

The cheapest option to start a space marine army would be the Dark Vengeance or Assault on Black Reach starter sets. Each of these give you 10 tactical marines (with Dark Vengeance tacs being better due to plasma cannon marine), 5 tactical terminators, and a captain. DV also gives you some bikers (not so good, but fun) and a librarian (great model and very useful), while AoBR provides you with a barebones dreadnought (which, again, you can convert via bitz sites to be any dreadnought you want).

 

Starter set terminators are especially nice because you can then get some hammers/shields/claws from a bitz site and convert your own budget assault terminators. Stick them in a land raider crusader and you got a decent counter-attack/interception unit that can complement your generally shooty army.

 

For a beginning army at 1750 pts, you're good with 3 tactical squads, a melee captain or a librarian, 5 assault terminators in a land raider, and a number of shooty stuff (like dual autocannon dreads, las-plas predators, sternguard, multimelta attack bikes, vindicators etc.). You're going to be proxying a lot of stuff in the beginning but this should give you a good idea of how the army is played.

 

You should generally avoid the dead entries in the codex (bad/overpriced units that you'd never include in a competitive list), namely: legion of the damned, whirlwinds, land speeder storms, venerable dreads, ironclad dreads, assault marines, scout bikes, honor guard, vanguard, redeemer, etc.

[W0lfie]

What kinds of weapons should tactical squads and razorbacks have?

[Giga]

I currently play 1850pts and run 3 tac squads equipped as such:

 

10 guys

flamer

combiflamer

plasma cannon

rhino

total: 220 pts

 

Depending on your list and your local metagame, you may want to replace the flamer/combiflamer with melta/combimelta or even plasma/combiplasma combo. I generally have lots of multimeltas elsewhere in my armies and prefer to keep tacticals as anti infantry.

 

Don't bother with close combat upgrades. Tacticals are crap in combat. Just make sure they don't end up in any unwanted assaults.

 

Tactically, I combat squad them and put the plasma cannon combat squad on an objective or on a good vantage point, while the flamer/combiflamer squad goes forward with the army to grab objectives, drop dual flamer templates from the rhino hatch, or sometimes even get out and rapid fire something. In kill points missions you don't combat squad and just put the entire group in the rhino. While this usually wastes your plasma cannon, you're getting bigger rapid fire volleys so it's an okay trade off.

 

The rhino is generally as mobile cover (for example, vindicator and rhino move side by side in movement phase, vindicator shoots, then rhino turbo boosts in front of it to give it a cover save and prevent assault on the vindicator) and as a walling system (tacticals disembark, then rhino rides forward 12-18" to block the path of an incoming enemy assault unit, stalling them for a turn or forcing them to enter terrain/look for other paths). If you have good target saturation and know how to take advantage of cover, your rhinos should easily survive up to turn 3-4, but don't make the mistake of being overly defensive with them, they're supposed to be expendable.

 

Razorbacks, I heard lascannon+twinlinked plasmagun razorbacks are great, but I don't really use razorbacks so can't comment there. Anyhow, I'd say razorbacks are better in SW armies, and am not a fan of spending so many points on an 11 11 10 vehicle that has no firing points and can only transport 6 models. :/

[Brom MKIV]

You should generally avoid the dead entries in the codex (bad/overpriced units that you'd never include in a competitive list), namely: legion of the damned, whirlwinds, land speeder storms, venerable dreads, ironclad dreads, assault marines, scout bikes, honor guard, vanguard, redeemer, etc.

I disagree with whirlwinds and ironclad dreads, and to an extent scout bikes, maybe even vanguard as well. Whirlwinds are cheap and in the current 'age of infantry' they are actually not a bad choice especially since they can snipe models now. Ironclads otoh were great everytime I fielded them (2 in pods with 2 HKMs each). The rest unfortunately I do agree you should avoid, vanguard because allied BAs vanguard are better and scout bikes because they perform a very niche roll that requires a certain list construction.

 

What kinds of weapons should tactical squads and razorbacks have?

This depends on the type of list and the purpose of those tacs. Generally if a tac squad is going to embark a razorback though you will be combat squading and leaving the heavy weapon behind. If this is the case take a longer ranged heavy like lascannon and put either a flamer (free) or a plasmagun with the razorback squad, although melta is ok too. Then if points allow consider a matching combi weapon for the serg.

As for razorback weapon, several types are considered the most viable: heavy bolter for sheer cheapness, las/plas for range and ap2 goodness, and TL asscan for versatility. Blood angels Fast razors make the las/plas variant the obvious choice for them. For all other marine chapters I believe the TL asscan is king because without Fast other chapters RBs will usually be shooting a single las + 1 snapshot TL plasma, as opposed to the 4 TL shots from the asscan. Also when targetting flyers the asscans 4 TL shots are excellent and you can move 12" while shooting them without any loss in effectiveness.

As an aside ive really come back full circle to the assault cannon this edition. The changes to AP and the proliferation of infantry makes asscans a superior all-comers weapon, with range being the only issue, so thats my vote.

[tvih]

vanguard because allied BAs vanguard are better

But then, considering just how much better (read: how broken) Death Company is compared to Vanguard, if you're really minmaxing your list why would you take Vanguard as Blood Angels? Though if you want to minmax I'm not sure there's much reason to use SM+BA instead of just BA anyway.

 

That said, other than for BA I don't get the Vanguard hate. It's not a bad unit for close combat - the main problem is that of any other SM CC unit, lack of assault transports. Because admittedly with Jump Packs they become too expensive compared to regular assault marines.

[W0lfie]

So 1 flamer squad and 1 plasma squad, plus my scouts and (soon to be) troops terminators should round out my troops selection, right?

[Giga]

I disagree with whirlwinds and ironclad dreads, and to an extent scout bikes, maybe even vanguard as well. Whirlwinds are cheap and in the current 'age of infantry' they are actually not a bad choice especially since they can snipe models now. Ironclads otoh were great everytime I fielded them (2 in pods with 2 HKMs each). The rest unfortunately I do agree you should avoid, vanguard because allied BAs vanguard are better and scout bikes because they perform a very niche roll that requires a certain list construction.

Ehhhh... Could you link me some tournament-winning lists that utilized vanguard/ironclads/scout bikes/vanguard, possibly with some battle reports and opponents's lists as well?

[Garath]

There weren't so many tournaments in 6th ed to this day. Whirlwinds are the new huge sniper weapon of the 6th ed.

 

Casualties have to be removed from the central hole of the template. This means if you place the template over a heavy weapon dude and a single model fails it's save that guy is the first to go. Same goes for unit leaders, except they get a look out sir roll.

 

And it ignores most cover...making it extra useful against aegis defense line for example.

[Giga]

There weren't so many tournaments in 6th ed to this day. Whirlwinds are the new huge sniper weapon of the 6th ed.

 

Casualties have to be removed from the central hole of the template. This means if you place the template over a heavy weapon dude and a single model fails it's save that guy is the first to go. Same goes for unit leaders, except they get a look out sir roll.

 

And it ignores most cover...making it extra useful against aegis defense line for example.

That's IF you roll a hit on that template AND if the opposing player then fails his 3+ save, seeing as the only armies who have meaningful heavy weapon dudes are MEQ and won't care much about your S5 AP4 anyway. Oh and, the whirlwind only ignores cover if you fire it in a barrage, or if you use the crappy S4 AP5 missiles. A barrage pieplate will on average scatter 7-9". Good luck hitting any heavy weapon guy then.

 

Don't give people bad advice. Whirlwinds were a weak allcomers choice in 5th ed, and they're even worse now because they're more fragile. If you want barrage weapons, get guard allies and add a manticore. One manticore will outperform two whirlwinds any day and not put two extremely weak kill points into your army. :P

 

To anyone who really wants to buy a whirlwind: DO NOT GLUE THE TURRET. Keep your options open, trust me.